Lorraine K. LeeFounder & CEO at RISE Learning Solutions

Tip of the Day: Pause

15 Jan 2022 · 2 min

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1:40

In this short video, Lorraine K. Lee presents a simple facilitation technique: after asking a question, pause for at least five seconds before moving on. She explains that a two‑second pause is too brief for most people to process the request and formulate a response, while a five‑second silence crosses a cultural threshold where participants begin to feel uncomfortable with the quiet and are more likely to speak up. This extra second often triggers one person to break the silence, which can spark additional ideas and discussion among the group. Lee acknowledges that maintaining a five‑second pause can feel awkward for facilitators, but stresses its long‑term benefits for collaboration and engagement. She situates the tip within her broader "Pass It to Active Meeting" framework, offering a downloadable link, and invites viewers to subscribe to her newsletter for more facilitation advice.

Chapters

In today's tip of the day video, I'm going to share a technique with you that is going to lead to more input, more collaboration, and more questions from your team without you needing to implement anything complicated. The technique is to pause. And many of you are probably already doing this, which is great, but are you pausing long enough? Many of us, I'm sure, have been on those calls where the facilitator asks, okay, does anyone have any questions? You wait 2 seconds. Okay, no questions, let's move on. That is not enough time for people to process what you're asking and process what they might want to say. So I recommend pausing at least 5 seconds to really get that input from your teammates. Why 5 seconds? At least in American culture, 4 seconds is when people start getting really uncomfortable with the silence. So by waiting that extra second, you're giving the group a chance to speak up, and usually someone will speak up to break the silence. And once that one person speaks up, often it can trigger an idea in someone else, or maybe it touches on what someone else wanted to say, and so it can lead to more conversation. Now, for all the facilitators out there, I know 5 seconds is a long time. It can be uncomfortable, but this is a time to push through because it's really going to benefit you and your teams in the long run. Now this step to pause is one step in the Pass It to Active Meeting framework that I've created. You can download this framework. I will include it in the link in the post and you can check it out there. In the meantime, if you want more tips like these, please subscribe to my newsletter at lorraineklee.com/learn and I look forward to seeing you there.